What is the role of angels in end times events?

Question 10155.

The role of angels in the end times is far larger than most Christians realise, and Revelation is where it becomes impossible to miss. The role of angels is visible on almost every page of that book, sounding trumpets, pouring bowls, restraining winds, announcing judgements and gathering the harvest.

They are not decorative. They are the ordered means by which a great deal of what God has determined actually gets carried out, and watching the role of angels at work tells us something about how carefully the end has been arranged.

Angels as Agents of Judgement

In Revelation the seals are opened by the Lamb, but the trumpets and bowls are administered by angels. Seven angels stand before God and are given seven trumpets. Seven angels come out of the temple with the seven last plagues and are handed golden bowls full of the wrath of God.

The Greek word angelos means messenger, and that is the heart of the job. An angel does not act on his own initiative. He carries out what he has been sent to do, which is why the judgements arrive in sequence rather than in chaos. Four angels even hold back the winds of the earth until the servants of God have been sealed.

That detail is worth pausing on. The role of angels here includes restraint as well as release. Judgement does not fall a moment before it is permitted to fall.

The Angel with the Eternal Gospel

One of the most arresting scenes in the whole book comes in Revelation 14, where John sees an angel flying directly overhead with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people (Revelation 14:6).

Ordinarily God entrusts the gospel to redeemed people rather than to angels. Peter says that angels long to look into these things, and the great commission was given to men and women who had been forgiven. Here, in the darkest period of human history, an angel is given the message directly.

I read that as a mark of God’s determination that nobody in the tribulation will perish uninformed. Even then, mercy is still calling. The role of angels at that moment is to make sure the warning reaches the whole earth.

Michael and the War in Heaven

Revelation 12 describes war in heaven, with Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon and his angels, and the dragon being thrown down to the earth. Daniel had already introduced Michael as the great prince who has charge of Daniel’s people, and Daniel 12 says he will arise at a time of trouble such as never has been.

So there is an angelic dimension to Israel’s protection during the tribulation, and a heavenly conflict running alongside the earthly one. The woman in Revelation 12 flees into the wilderness and is nourished there for a set period, and the timing lines up with Michael’s activity.

My articles on Satan and the Antichrist and the time of Jacob’s trouble follow those threads.

Angels at the Return of Jesus

Jesus said the Son of Man will send out His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds. Paul says the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God. Paul also speaks of the Lord Jesus being revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire.

In the parable of the weeds Jesus explains that the reapers are angels, and that they will gather out of His kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers. The role of angels in the final separation is stated in the plainest terms He ever used about them.

Binding, Judging and Worshipping

An angel comes down from heaven holding the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain, and seizes the dragon and binds him for a thousand years. It is a striking picture. The enemy who has terrified the world for millennia is handled by a single unnamed angel with a chain, which tells you something about the actual balance of power. See the great chain of Revelation 20.

There is a curious reversal in the New Testament too. Paul asks the Corinthians whether they do not know that we are to judge angels. Believers, who now need angelic help, will one day have a part in judging fallen ones. And through it all the unfallen angels worship, filling heaven with sound whenever the Lamb is honoured.

The Role of Angels Before the End

It helps to see the end-times activity as continuous with what angels have always done, rather than as a sudden change of employment.

They announced births to Abraham, Manoah, Zechariah and Mary. They fed Elijah under a broom tree and strengthened Jesus in Gethsemane. They opened prison doors for Peter and stood beside Paul on a sinking ship to tell him nobody would be lost. Hebrews asks whether they are not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation (Hebrews 1:14).

So the role of angels at the end is the same role enlarged: announcing, serving, executing and protecting. Daniel 10 even shows an angelic messenger delayed for three weeks by opposition until Michael came to help, which is a rare glimpse behind the curtain of a conflict we mostly do not see.

What Angels Do Not Do

Just as important is the list of things Scripture never gives them, because that is where popular teaching runs off the road.

Angels are never prayed to. They never redeem anybody, since only a kinsman could do that and they are not our kin. They do not become the departed, despite what is said at a great many funerals; human beings and angels are separate orders of creation and always remain so. And they do not act independently, which is the whole point of a messenger.

Paul warns the Colossians against anyone insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions and puffed up without reason. That warning was written to a first century church and it has aged remarkably well. The role of angels is real, honourable and entirely subordinate, and any teaching that makes them the centre of attention has misunderstood what a messenger is for. See whether Christians will have authority over angels.

An Ordered Universe

Step back from the details and something larger comes into view.

The picture Scripture gives is of a universe far more populated and far more organised than the one most of us imagine as we go about a Tuesday. Thrones, authorities, messengers, watchers, a court in session, armies on standby. Elisha’s servant panicked at an encircling army until his eyes were opened and he saw the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire.

The role of angels in the end times is the public unveiling of what has been true all along. Nothing new is created for the occasion; a hidden order becomes visible.

That should do something to the small anxieties of ordinary life. You are not alone in a mechanical universe hoping God notices. You are surrounded by an ordered kingdom whose servants are already deployed, and the same God who has scheduled the trumpets knows the name of the street you live on.

Angels and the Church Today

One further thread runs from the present into the end, and Paul draws it in an unexpected place.

He tells the Ephesians that through the church the manifold wisdom of God is being made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. Angelic beings are watching congregations, and what they are learning from is the gospel at work in ordinary people.

Peter says the same thing from another angle when he writes that angels long to look into the salvation we have received. They have never been forgiven, never been redeemed, never sung a song about grace from the inside.

So the next time your midweek prayer meeting feels small and unimpressive, remember who is paying attention.

So, now what?

Two cautions and one comfort. The first caution is against fascination. Twice in Revelation John falls down to worship an angel, and twice he is told not to: “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you.” If the apostle could be dazzled, so can we, and the modern appetite for angel encounters is not as harmless as it looks.

The second caution is against dismissal. Some of us are so wary of excess that we have quietly written angels out of a universe Scripture says is full of them.

The comfort is this. The role of angels in the end times shows a God who has organised every stage of what is coming, down to which winds are held and when. Nothing at the end will be improvised. Does that not take some of the fear out of the headlines?

And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Matthew 24:31 (ESV)